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Born in a brothel: New perspectives on childcare with medieval sex workers

Né dans un bordel : nouvelles perspectives sur la garde d’enfants chez les travailleuses du sexe médiévales
Maxime Poulain, Céline Bon et Jessica Palmer

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1Prostitution was omnipresent in medieval Europe. In the study of past sex work, historical studies have thus far mainly focused on institutions and brothel keepers, which often pop up in the records (issuing rules or being fined for not paying taxes). The women who served in these houses, however, usually remain in obscurity. They were often financially dependent on their tenants, and therefore vulnerable to exploitation. When they do appear in the sources, it is generally in a context of abortion or infanticide. In a male-dominated Christian society, these crimes were closely associated with sexual inferiority, and therefore almost exclusively with women, who were – according to the late-medieval male gaze – inherently lecherous and irresponsible. Archaeological and anthropological sciences offer the potential to invert this perspective and get a better grip on the ordinary lives of female prostitutes in medieval society, but this potential remains largely untapped. In this paper, we target a 14th-century brothel in the city of Aalst (Belgium). Excavations in 1998 revealed the heated baths with which this establishment was equipped, but also a three-month-old infant, buried in a corner of the building. This infant burial is now being re-evaluated in a collaboration between the Musée de l’Homme and Ghent University, through combined ancient DNA and dietary stable isotope analyses. While no pathogens were identified, elevated δ15N values clearly point in the direction of breastfeeding. Infanticide in strictest understanding of the term, immediately after birth, can therefore be excluded. The presence of this infant outside of a regular cemetery is nonetheless remarkable. It is hypothesized that this differential funerary treatment is possibly the consequence of the mother’s low rank within the community’s hierarchy. Based on comparable sites and theological and popular beliefs, this deviant burial is subsequently interpreted within its domestic geography, which is suggestive of attachment and an affective bond between parent and child. In doing so, we nuance the historical focus on abortion and infanticide with medieval sex workers and highlight the multiple roles of these women, being not only sex workers, but potentially also caring mothers, even in what sometimes must have been the most hopeless of circumstances.

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Maxime Poulain, Céline Bon et Jessica Palmer, « Born in a brothel: New perspectives on childcare with medieval sex workers »Bulletins et mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris [En ligne], 37(S) | 2025, mis en ligne le 16 janvier 2025, consulté le 10 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/bmsap/15259 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/133p9

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Auteurs

Maxime Poulain

Department of Archaeology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium ; maxime.poulain[at]ugent.be

Céline Bon

UMR 7206 Eco-Anthropologie, MNHN-CNRS-UPC, Département Homme et Environnement, Musée de l’Homme, Paris, France

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Jessica Palmer

Department of Archaeology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

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Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

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